Green and Red
by reenka
Summary: Ginny sees green everywhere, even in her dreams; Draco is distracted by flashes of red, droplets of blood; Harry-- Harry hates this one particular color, and cannot escape. None of them can really escape who the others perceive them to be. pre-slash


disclaimer: not mine.  
warning: slash. het. peculiar color fixations.  
dedication: ishuca's `plague of legends' makes me want to be its illegitimate bastard love-child.  
  
  
-Green and Red-   
  
Green. All she could see anymore was green. In her dreams and in her memories and reflected in his eyes. She knew where he was looking, because it wasn't at her. She'd stare at him, looking out the window, the sun giving his head an unfortunate sort of halo, and she'd see Harry flying and laughing outside, and how could she -not- know. He had swallowed a little, and shifted, and then asked her something inconsequential. At least he didn't try to kiss her. He did that sometimes. Stare into space and then snap out of it and pull her harshly to him, his fingers closing around her forearms with bruising force. She wished it was because he felt so strongly. And it was, really.   
  
Sometimes she dreamed that the Shadowed Boy, whose face she never saw anymore, whispered about little spells she could do, little ways to make sure he'd forget and she could breathe easy. He could be hers. It would be simple-- the knowledge came as swift and gentle as a dream, and yet it lingered, even when she'd forgotten the details of who had whispered the secrets into her mouth. She closed her eyes, and saw green and red, flowing, mixing. The colors of death. She didn't want that one spell, the one that was final and frightening and unforgivable. But she liked the green. There was something pure about it, cleansing even. The truth was, when the green light came, there was nothing. Nothing flowing, nothing breathing, just everything being still.   
  
Sometimes she thought that it was beautiful, that bloodless breathless dream, pulsing with power. As if it was a different sort of life, a different way of living. Brighter. Lighter.  
  
She wanted it for herself. She seemed to have forgotten when she had wanted -them-, outside it. She remembered dreaming about green, and it was only his eyes. And then there was Draco, who wore it, cloaked himself within it, trying to pretend it was a part of him, but she wasn't fooled. She knew what darkness tasted like, and when they kissed she only tasted dominance and desire and the will to forget. No one really knew what it was like to contain green until it becomes a second heartbeat, to wear it on the inside so that no one notices, and no one can help you and no one can hear you scream. She held it closer to her heart, thinking it was mingling with her heart's blood, the darkness settling inside her like a precipitation of a sort. She may not need his blood. She may only need slather hers upon his pale moonlit skin, whispering of broken promises and strangled hope and most of all, of her dreams of green.  
~~  
  
He stared outside the window, biting his lip bloody, licking up the warm fluid, trying to distract himself from his preoccupation, his constant addiction, his complete inability to even mask his weakness anymore. He realized the redhead beside him had to have noticed. He realized he was really fooling no one, and the one person he had wanted to fool in the first place wouldn't notice if he went around with half a face these days. He hadn't really noticed the other's face, not for years. It seemed to be completely subsumed, taken up by the scar, even though it was hidden, barely a pale gash peeking out of the inky veil of his hair, most days. He hadn't even known what color his eyes were. Oh, he did, theoretically. Famous Harry Potter, with his famous scar and his famous green eyes and his famous smile, and so on. What a load of rubbish, really.  
  
The boy was clearly hideous. Clumsy. Clueless. Dense. A self-righteous Muggle-loving prick who didn't deserve any of the attention he'd gotten from anyone. Certainly, who didn't deserve his own attention in the slightest.   
  
They were green. His eyes. He had noticed one morning, during a purely cursory glance over to his desk during Potions. Snape had been particularly amusing that morning in his torturing of Potter. And yes, they were pure green, luminous and clear and almost fragrant somehow, like spring. He cringed, disgusted with his own fascination. Such an unnatural color. It shouldn't exist. It wasn't right. Potter shouldn't exist. Everyone knew that. Potter was an abomination, a mistake, a freak accident walking on two legs and spouting bloody nonsense everyone thought was charming and clever. Whereas his own cleverness was obviously underappreciated at best, derided at worst. Life wasn't fair, and it wasn't helping knowing that Potter's eyes were unfairly, brilliantly, impossibly green.  
  
He looked in vain for a speck of gold or brown or silver in that green, but had no luck. Potter had to notice, and he probably did notice, he thought, and he's just ignoring me as usual. Which was fine, really, just what he wanted. He certainly didn't want Potter to be getting any crazy ideas. Crazy ideas and Potter always seemed to go hand in hand. Sort of the way he was walking down the corridors and slipping "inobtrusively" out of the Great Hall, and sitting a bit too close during Potions, all hand in hand, with that drab, mousy Mudblood, of all people. Bland and fussy and of much too high of an opinion of herself, something Draco couldn't stand for. It was really unforgivable to think above your station, father had always reminded him of that.  
  
What was he doing? Couldn't he see that he was driving a bloody sharp wedge into their sappy little Trio? Even Draco noticed the Weasel having been unusually quiet and glum, no longer taunting him or rising to all but his most blatant tauntings. Not noticing had seemingly become the idiot's second profession, after humiliating him and beating him at Quidditch, which probably took up most of his time. Draco was really amazed Potter had any time left to moon disgustingly over Granger. It must be a talent, he reflected. Mooning like a soppy whipped bastard in plain sight of everyone. No self-respect. No shame.  
  
And yet. And yet. When he was in the air, it seemed that finally, he was ripped away from his definitions, from the colors he wore every day, and become someone else, someone made of speed and grace and delirious laughter. Draco felt he could almost touch him, just watching him. As if their worlds were really on the verge of colliding, and if he just paid a bit more attention, if he only went a little bit faster--  
  
Draco felt very much earth-bound, suddenly, even though he would never fully admit it to himself. He was practically glued to his chair. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he didn't know why anymore. And now here he was, glued to this ridiculous sham of a dalliance with the stupid Weasel's sister (you'd think that would've had more of an impact on the sleepwalking Gryffindors, really), no longer within that circle of influence that had given him power over the other Seeker. No longer right there with him, no longer flying.  
  
He couldn't wait. He couldn't wait to be there with him, everyone else forgotten, their teams merely a distant noise in the background. He couldn't wait for the moment where he caught him. He would rip the gold from his palm, and he would sneer, and he would tell him who was whose, if it wasn't already obvious. He would tell him.  
  
Draco ripped his eyes away and fastened his lips on those of the girl next to him. She gasped, and sputtered, and proceeded to bite his lip, drawing blood. His face snapped away quick as lightning, his expression one of shock, his eyes wide, his reaction quite delayed. She was smiling, her teeth startlingly white against the smeared red of her lips.  
  
"All things come to an end, Draco," she said.  
~~  
  
He hated green. He hated what it made him think of, he hated what it made him capable of, touching it, having any tiny part of himself associated with it. He wished green wasn't a color, was something it was possible to obliterate with wishing and magic and staring into Hermione's warm eyes for a really long time. He stared a lot, but he never really forgot the green lurking everywhere around him. The world was no safer, his heart not really all that warmer.   
  
He'd loved her before, and he loved her now. Except that now Ron stared at him sometimes as if he'd killed someone. And Harry knew he could, and in fact, probably will soon enough. The thought made him want to throw up. He would almost force himself to throw up if he thought he could purge all traces of green from his system, but of course he couldn't.  
  
That's all anyone saw of him. The first thing anyone saw of him-- and naturally many of them would get around to remarking upon it eventually, their voices soft and their intonations rising in amazement.  
  
"Oh, Harry, they're so beautiful!"  
  
"Oh, I can't -believe- they're really that color, even though I've heard it was true!"  
  
"Do you -know- how unusual that is? I bet you get a lot of girls, mate."  
  
"Merlin, but they're pretty!"  
  
So many voices, all saying the same thing. Apparently they were pretty. Apparently, they were green. Apparently, they defined him in some ineffable, total way, to a large number of strangers and even some friends. Thinking about it too long, Harry became more and more convinced that snapping completely and killing the next person who mentioned how beautiful his eyes were was just a matter of time. He would smile and feel slightly better at his internal monologue, but of course he never actually admitted it to anyone, not even himself in his saner moments. He never had lapses. He never allowed himself to wallow in regret or wishful thinking, even, anymore. It was dangerous. If he started, he'd always known he might never stop. So many things to wish for, all of them impossible.  
  
He wished he could have green be the first thing people saw of him forever and a day, if it would mean it would never be the -last- thing. He wished he could tell Hermione his wishes, and that she looked not at him but through him, and somehow understood what he was trying to not tell her. He wished they could go back to they way things were, but he was aware that was fruitless, nothing ever went backwards, and only forwards and down, and away.  
  
He could feel the other's eyes on him, even from all that distance. They burned into him, scorching his skin, stealing his breath, making his cheeks burn red. When he'd touch down, he would smile and act normal and everyone would take his flush and the sweat upon his brow for simple exertion. And that was definitely for the best. He liked to get to the bottom of things. He didn't like running away or hiding or even concealing the truth, really. This was one thing he knew better than to investigate, however.   
  
Laying awake at night, he wondered if Draco saw green when he looked at him. Only weeks (or was it months?) ago, Harry would've laughed and said that Draco probably saw red. Gryffindor red, anger red. In fact, he was probably only refraining from physical violence because he knew Harry would hex him into oblivion before his mouth even opened to throw the opening insult, before the strike even came. Though it wasn't that Harry thought he knew Draco that well, really. Sometimes, maybe, but that didn't count-- it was when he was half-asleep or really dead-tired, or sitting beside the two people he loved most in the world, who didn't see him anymore. He'd feel Draco's eyes, and refuse to meet them. He'd feel them calling him, writing his own name across his skin, whispering all sorts of mutely disasterous obsenities into his mouth without ever touching any part of him. His imagination would run away with him, but his face would remain still, unmoved, his mouth opening only to down more pumpkin juice and smile sweetly at Hermione.  
  
He'd really gotten too good at this. He was almost afraid of himself sometimes, really. He wondered if he was good enough to fool Malfoy. He was pretty sure he was. Fooling Malfoy that is. He was just a stupid Slytherin with a hidden agenda, anyway. He was sure all the prat could see of him these days was the deathly red of his scar and possibly the green everyone else found so fascinating. Harry could only assume that's what Draco was looking for, staring at him so fruitlessly for so long.  
  
That was alright, Harry was realistic, these days. All he could see was green as well. Death and curses and the smooth murmur and sway of green robes flying up against him, daring him to look away, to give the other boy a thread of opportunity to catch the gold. Not bloody likely. These were Gryffindor colors he was fighting for-- red and gold. They were who and what he was and he was never going to let that go. The green was going to have to wait forever.  
~~ 


End file.
